GQ Just Dissed Adam Driver’s Awesome Theater Credits

Adam Driver graces the September 2014 cover of GQ

Adam Driver is on the cover of GQ which is awesome. Do you know what’s not awesome? The way writer Jessica Pressler completely dismisses Driver’s impressive theater credits in her article

“Three years ago, Adam Driver was a former Marine with little more than a degree from Juilliard and a guest spot on Law & Order to show for his acting career. Then he landed on a show called Girls.”

Really? Three years ago, let’s see, that’s 2011: the year Driver starred on Broadway in Man and Boy opposite Frank Langella (that’s three-time Tony Winner and Oscar Nominee Frank Langella) in a play by lauded playwright Terrence Rattigan. That same year, he also replaced Zachary Quinto in the lead role of Louis in the critically acclaimed Signature Theatre Revival of Tony Kushner’s landmark two-part play Angels in America. He even got a nice write up in the New York Times. Four years ago, Adam Driver made his Broadway debut in Mrs. Warren’s Profession opposite Cherry Jones and Sally Hawkins, and he even found time to star in The Forest at Classic Stage Company along with two-time Oscar Winner Dianne Wiest. Five years ago, he graduated from Julliard and starred in Slipping at The Rattlestick along with fellow rising star Seth Numrich and The Retributionists at Playwrights Horizons with fellow up-and-comer Cristin Milioti (she has a new TV show this fall, check it out).

Driver and Cherry Jones in Mrs. Warren’s Profession

Between graduation in 2009 and the premiere of Girls in 2012 he starred in two Broadway plays and six Off-Broadway productions (I’m counting Angels as two productions and throwing in the Off-Broadway revival of John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger which premiered at the Roundabout before Girls first aired in early 2012). Most actors would kill to have so little to show for their careers three years post-graduation.

Driver, right, with Michael Urie in Angels in America: Perestroika

“… Success wasn’t exactly immediate for Driver in the years after college. He did a few Off-Broadway plays, the obligatory Law & Order episode, a couple of easily missed movies.”

Here again, Ms. Pressler dismissively refers to “a few Off-Broadway plays” as if Driver performed spoken word in some guy’s basement apartment. What Ms. Pressler fails to grasp is that it was his performances in these plays that got him noticed. His diverse stage work over the course of a short period was a springboard into these highly visible film and television projects. Writers are always quick to say some actor “just came out of nowhere” when the fact is that a lot of actors have been performing at a high level on stage for years before Hollywood comes calling.  I’m a casting director, and I knew who Adam Driver was before he was on Girls because I go to the theater. This is how we find actors, it’s not the only way, but it is one of the best ways.